To Love and Be Loved in Return
by fowl68
Summary: They're friends and enemies and family and half the time they're broken, the other half they're not sure they've ever felt more whole. Snippets of lives. Multiple pairings.


**Disclaimer**: Don't own anything. The song is Because You Loved Me by Celine Dion. These aren't all the lyrics.

**Author's Note**: Fear my chance to try and write just about every Symphonia character in a single one-shot. I'm not sure I captured every character—Genis, I know, is hard for me to write properly—but I wanted to try it out.

Happy holidays and good luck in the new year!

-/-/-/-

"_The greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love and to be loved in return."—Moulin Rouge_

-/-/-/

_For all those times you stood by me_

The kids used to tease him at school, for being younger, for being elven, for being so smart, for anything really. Children would be children, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. He'd been at the school for almost six months when Lloyd arrived.

Lloyd was…something else…in the classroom. Not stupid, but not intelligent. He was intuitive and lazy with his work and passionate about everything else. Even at eight years old, Lloyd has a remarkable amount of presence. People simply can't help but listen when he speaks, even if his answers are wrong, even if what he talks about are strange ideas and crazy stories of going off on an adventure one day. Genis had never seen or heard anything like it.

When the kids came to tease him again, Genis had already had a plan to try and ignore them, to try and let the insults wash over him like they did to Raine. But the insults had only just begun when Lloyd's unmistakable voice yelled at them to stop. He's beside Genis in an instant, snapping at the others for making fun of him.

"Why-Why'd you do that?" Genis stammers when the kids are gone.

Lloyd looks at him as though he isn't sure why he's asking the question. "Because you don't deserve it and even if you did, it's not right."

Even now, all these years later, when Lloyd speaks of rejoining the worlds, he still has that same presence and that same attitude.

_For all the truth that you made me see_

"You don't seriously think that just because you were dead, that Kuchinawa wouldn't set the Pope's men on us, do you?" Zelos is still panting from their scuffle after they'd been dropped—rather unceremoniously—into Sylvarant.

Sheena rakes her hair out of her face. It's one of her biggest annoyances, Zelos knows, her hair. "You're telling me that Kuchinawa was working with the Pope?"

"Those guys we were fighting were his men."  
"Goddess…why would he _do_ something like that?"

Zelos shrugs and pretends not to understand a traitor's thoughts. "Maybe he was blackmailed or something."

Before they can say any more, the others arrive and lecture Sheena on her rather suicidal move. "You should be _thanking_ Zelos." Lloyd says.

She says it, but she doesn't mean it just then. It's after a few days of stewing it over and cold shoulders that she sits beside him at dinner that night and says, "You were right. I was being an idiot."

_For all the joy you brought to my life_

He's interesting, this Yuan. They haven't known each other long, perhaps a few days, but he's charming, in his strange way. He has an opinion on everything and half of his opinions have him and Kratos getting into arguments that eventually get to the point where Martel can't follow it anymore.

But he makes her laugh. Easily. And sometimes it will be with nothing more than an expression on his face or a choked sound in the back of his throat when Mithos says something. And even with days of travelling slowly turning into months, he doesn't get any less charming or funny. If anything, he gets sweeter.

"I was, uh, getting some firewood and I saw this-this flower and, I dunno, I thought you'd like it 'cause girls like flowers…right?" He's glancing between his feet and her face, a hand holding out the pale purple flower.

Martel smiles. She can't help it. She's learned little about Yuan and Kratos' lives before they were on the run from the human military, but she knows that Yuan grew up with three brothers. Of course he'd be nervous—something she hadn't thought was possible with that cocky attitude of his.

She takes the flower and kisses his cheek. "Yes, we like flowers."

_For all the wrong that you made right_

Mizuho cooking was very different from that of the rest of the world. Theirs involved a lot of rice and fish and pasta. Their seasonings were few. So it's become a nightly ritual that Sheena sits and watches the others cook—except for Raine. She'd found that one out the hard way. She didn't speak often during those times until Regal brought it up once.

"You're very quiet when others are cooking." He'd said, chopping skillfully in spite of the handcuffs.

Sheena shrugged. "I'm a visual learner. Most of the time."

"You don't have questions? You're usually so curious." Regal doesn't mind. He knows that Mizuho is a strict and isolated culture. To someone like Sheena, who had tasted the world outside of it, it was only natural to want to know more.

"Yeah, but I thought you guys might find them a little annoying."

Regal shakes his head and beckons her closer. "Do you know how to make curry?"

"No."

He smiles. "Do you want to learn?"

He goes with her through the steps. It's simple enough and it involved rice, so that was one less thing Sheena had to learn and it was a connection that she could make mentally to make the lesson click. When she's about to drop in the wrong spice, he catches her hand and points to the right one.

The old nightly ritual changes to cooking lessons and gentle teasing. Genis helped out often too and Lloyd would chime in here and then. Colette had tried to help once—she wasn't a bad cook. Merely a clumsy one—and nearly set the campsite aflame. Their dinners are laughter and shouting and shared plates and it feels like home.

_For every dream you made come true_

Everything's over—or has it begun?—and they're standing in the back, two ghosts of an era now passed and watching the new generations as they cheer and laugh and embrace each other. The nightmares will come, the ghosts know. Oh, how they know. But for now, this generation is happy.

The woman who makes Yuan's heart seize every time he sees her because she looks so damned much like Martel but it isn't Martel, it isn't because Martel is dead and gone comes closer. She walks like a willow tree swaying in the wind and flowers and blades of grass spring from where she steps.

She smiles at them, this not-Martel, in a mimicry of how the real Martel used to. But this smile is sadder, older. "She says thank you."

Both seraphim stare at her, hoping that they both heard wrong and that they didn't.

"Martel Yggdrasill…" The spirit says, seeing the blank looks on their faces. "She wanted me to thank you."

_For all the love I found in you  
I'll be forever thankful baby_

He doesn't forget her. He doesn't think he can. Especially with Presea working with him. They're not twins, Alicia and Presea, but the resemblance is there. And it's more than simply the coloring. It's their expressions and the way they talk.

Alicia had been the less practical of the two, the dreamier, more feminine one. But Presea smiles like her and the smiles are becoming a little more common as Presea's body begins to catch up with her age. Alicia had laughed often. She'd challenged him, sometimes. Beneath the ponytail, the bright colors and the skirts, she'd had a spine of steel. After meeting Presea, it isn't difficult for Regal to figure out where it came from.

He makes it a point to wake up a good twenty minutes before he has to. He gets ready for the day and takes the elevator to the terrace. He leaves flowers for her, ones that he buys from the flower shop that's opening up just as he's walking out the door. Sometimes Presea is there as well, sometimes she isn't.

Once a year, Regal doesn't go to work. He brings some food up to the terrace and stays there all day and simply talks to Alicia. He's fairly certain that she can't hear him. Her Exsphere is gone, but he hasn't completely thrown out a supernatural superstition that the dead really could hear you once they'd gone on.

Presea asks him why he takes that one day off, every year. He'd smiled a little and said, "It's our anniversary."

_You're the one who held me up  
Never let me fall_

Lloyd has become accustomed to keeping an eye out for Colette. And it isn't the threat of monsters. He knows she can take care of herself in that arena. It's those stray pebbles on the ground or that step she doesn't notice that he worries about.

Colette used to be a little afraid of falling, back when she was little. She'd cling tightly to the banister of the stairs and keep a hand on a wall at all times to help her balance. But now, she hardly ever does that. She's used to the feeling of a hard ground beneath her back, the sore muscles and sprained ankles.

But everytime she looks up, Lloyd is there, smiling and shaking his head as he offers a hand up.

_You're the one who saw me through through it all_

You were my strength when I was weak

"You had to go too far, didn't you?" Zelos said dryly.

Lloyd laughs a little before wincing. He isn't a Healer by any means, but he's pretty sure his leg is not supposed to bend like that. One of his arms was slung around Zelos' neck and Zelos' left arm was wound around his waist as he sort of hopped-skipped rather than walk.

"I was so _close_." Lloyd insists. "I swear, I almost learned it."

It's a natural thing for a swordsman to constantly be looking for that next challenge. Of course, most swordsmen weren't nearly at Lloyd's level, so they didn't try to pull the same sort of dangerous stunts. Zelos doesn't ask why. He already knows why Lloyd was so determined to learn this. He'd seen Kratos do it a hundred times and, if Kratos could do it, so could he.

Zelos doesn't give him the lecture of 'stop trying to live up to your father'. He knows he isn't the one to talk about such things. He'd never agreed with his old man, had never wanted to be the Chosen like him, so he doesn't understand the why of what Lloyd is doing. He just knows it.

Zelos sets him to lean against a boulder. "Hold still so I can see how bad the damage is."

Lloyd squirms a little—understandable, really. He had a broken leg—but it isn't nearly as bad as it could be. In fact, had Lloyd listened to Zelos the first time when he'd fallen and found that he'd twisted his ankle, he wouldn't have landed wrong because of said twisted ankle and subsequently broken his leg.

"First Aid." Zelos lets the magic run down his arm and out his fingertips and he suppresses the shiver that comes from hearing the squishing and cracking that comes from resetting a bone. This was why he could never be a real Healer, like Raine. He hated those sounds.

Lloyd tests his weight gingerly. "Good as new, Zelos! Thanks!"  
Zelos yanks him back by his collar when he starts to run, probably back to where he left his swords so he could do this all over again. "Plant your feet. You should probably avoid anything too extreme for a day or two, just to make sure that leg sets right."

Lloyd rolls his eyes, but obeys. He'd been taught to listen to Healers, mostly by Dirk whacking him over the head if he tried to get away while they bandaged him up during the many visits when Lloyd had just begun learning swordsmanship.

Zelos knows that Lloyd will be out there again tomorrow night, at the earliest. The kid is stubborn as hell. Not that it matters. Zelos will probably be out here healing him again no matter how many times he did it.

_You were my voice when I couldn't speak_

Sometimes, when Colette is holding hands with Lloyd, she'll unconsciously begin to spell something with her fingers on his palm. It's a habit left over from when she was mute from the angelic trials that she hasn't quite managed to kick.

Lloyd doesn't mind and now, he doesn't even have to look to know what she's spelling. He knows just by sensation.

_You were my eyes when I couldn't see_

Sheena tenses when she feels hands on her waist, one just a little too close to her breasts. "I swear, Zelos, that had better not be you."

The hand near her breast immediately moves downward into safer territory. "Sorry, darling. It's damned dark in here and I wanted to make sure I didn't run into anybody." The hands move slowly to her elbow, then down her arm until one hand closes around her own.

"It _is_ Shadow's Temple." Sheena says dryly. "Were you expecting neon arrows pointing us to him?"

"Noo…but I'd hoped to at least be able to see my hand in front of my face."

Sheena sighs. "C'mon. Let's get the others and then get out of here. I think some of my friends at the Meltokio Research Academy might have something to help."

_You saw the best there was in me_

Raine didn't quite recognize herself in the mirror and was immediately wary. After Mithos' tricks with the Derris-Emblem, she hadn't quite trusted mirrors since. Her eyes seemed slightly too large for her face with her hair pulled back from her face as it was by a sapphire clip. The midnight blue gown flowing down her body was a gift from the King. It shimmers when it hits a certain light.

Sheena smiled at her. "And you said I couldn't do it. I may not like it much, but make-up is used a lot in Mizuhoan ceremonies. I learned it regardless of whether or not I wanted to. They really stick those lessons in there."

Raine's eyes are shadowed by shimmering silver bordered with a thin line of black charcoal. The blemishes she'd acquired from so long on the road had been hidden by some sort of powder and Sheena had managed to put color in her naturally pale cheeks. "Yes, I suppose they do."

Sheena bent to gather their shoes—high heels, which made them both grimace. "C'mon. Let's go get this dinner party over with so we can get some sleep. On the plus side, the food's always great."

The looks on the men's faces when they come down the stairs is something Raine hasn't quite experienced before. Genis' smile widens. "Raine, you look fantastic!"

_Lifted me up when I couldn't reach_

Kratos isn't sure what he expected to find when he'd heard a commotion in the kitchen, but he's fairly certain that his son building a rickety ladder of boxes and pots wasn't it.

"Lloyd, what are you doing?"

Lloyd turns to look at him. "'M tryin' to reach the cookies."

Kratos glances up at the top cabinet. Anna had told Lloyd that he couldn't have the cookies if he didn't finish everything on his plate. Unfortunately for both father and son, there had been tomatoes on the plate. Personally, Kratos doesn't think that the presence of tomatoes should mean no cookies.

"Did you think to ask me for help?"

Lloyd looks sheepish. "I thought you'd say that I couldn't have the cookies."

Well, his son showed foresight at least. Just not when it counted. Kratos bent and hefted his son on his shoulder. "I think you can reach now."

Lloyd is holding the box of cookies like a lifeline when Kratos sits him down on the counter. "Papa, you want one? You didn' finish your tomatoes neither. Dun worry. I won' tell Mama."

Kratos considers it. "Alright. But just one."

_You gave me faith 'coz you believed_

"You really think there's a Goddess?" Zelos says doubtfully. "Even after all this?"

They're at Dirk's house, washing the dishes of the celebratory dinner. Zelos washes, Colette dries.

Colette doesn't answer right away. "Just because Martel isn't actually a Goddess doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. It just means that it wasn't the one we thought."

"Right, but…what kind of Goddess would let all these kinds of things happen to us? What kind of Goddess let Mithos get that far?"

Colette carefully sets a plate down and takes another one. "If you only believe when things are easy, then it isn't really faith, is it?"

_I'm everything I am  
Because you loved me_

You gave me wings and made me fly

Lloyd isn't sure he'll ever get entirely accustomed to flying. The way his stomach drops when he takes off, the tension in his body that doesn't leave because he's always aware that it's just him up here and the only things keeping him afloat are wings made from his own mana.

"Does it ever get any easier?" He asks Yuan once.

"What, the flying?"

"Mm."

Yuan eyes him. Right now, Lloyd looks more like his father than ever. He hasn't had a hair cut in months and his bangs fall into his eyes sometimes before he bats them away, irritated. There's a great deal of Anna in him. Yuan sees it right away. In the hot temper, in the willingness to trust people that most other people wouldn't. But there's a lot of Kratos in him too, in the way he walks, the way he smiles. And in his uneasiness with flying with his own wings.

Yuan shakes his head. "No. For you, I don't think it ever will get easier."

_You touched my hand I could touch the sky_

Genis isn't a brave person. He's stubborn, yes, but not brave. Not like the others were. So it takes him a long time to go through with some decisions. Not the academic ones. That, he was perfectly clear on. He wanted to go back to the Palmacosta Academy before going to some of the universities in Sybak.

But the thing that takes him more courage than he ever thought he had was to slow his stride to match Presea's and slip his hand into hers.

It was one of the best decisions he ever made.

_I lost my faith, you gave it back to me_

"You who lack the right, I have lost faith in all things. Have you come to disappoint me as well?"  
"Are you bound by a pact to Mithos?" The boy in red asks. There is something vaguely familiar about him.

"My pact with Mithos was broken the moment I was freed. Never again shall anyone make use of my power." Injustice and anger about Mithos' betrayal had raged inside him, but after so many millenia, the anger had cooled, the injustice dulled. Now, Origin is simply tired. He wants nothing more than to retreat away from the worlds that had become so twisted. That he had been an accomplice in twisting.

"Even if we make a vow?" The girl is young, but there is a desperate hope in her eyes. "We need the Eternal Sword."

"I want to use the Eternal Sword to reunite the two worlds." The boy tells him. Another idealist…how many would come to Origin? "Unless we do something, the worlds will never stop vying for mana and everyone will suffer."

"That situation was born from the weakness of people unable to accept those that are different."

"Maybe that's true, but mistakes can be corrected." The boy insists. He's a stubborn one. As stubborn as Mithos was.

"Some things cannot be corrected."

"Even so, we have to do everything we can! I'm not going to give up. From the moment they're born, everyone has a right to live. I want to reclaim that. Humans, half-elves, dwarves and even Summon Spirits! Everyone has a right to live." Idealists have come to Origin for eons, begging for help with their dreams. Mithos was one of the few Origin had ever believed could succeed. This boy is the first to include Summon Spirits in their ideals.

Origin's gaze is drawn to Kratos as he steps up beside the boy. The man has suffered, Origin can see. There is a weight in those eyes and the way he carried himself that had not been there four millenia ago.

And yet, even with all the suffering, there is still a strong resemblance to the boy. The same eye color, an odd red-tinted brown, and the same way of standing. Shifting their weight from one leg to the other with their hand resting on their sword.

"Origin," Kratos begins. "For almost an eternity, I thought the only way to save this world was by clinging to Mithos' ideals. Just as you once agreed with Mithos' ideals…I, too, thought his was the only way. But Lloyd is different. He taught me that if you wish to change something, you must change it yourself. It is not enough to merely rely on someone else and go along with their ideals."

Origin looks at this new generation. They are a brave sort. And optimistic. "…You who possess the right of the pact. Make your vow. I will…try once more to believe in people. I will do my duty to help create the world you speak of…a world where everyone can live equally."

_I'm everything I am  
Because you loved me_


End file.
